Rants on Bangalore's traffic situation

This is a discussion on Rants on Bangalore's traffic situation within Street Experiences, part of the Buckle Up category; Originally Posted by treadmark
I didn't consider this route in my list as an option because I thought Graphite India, ...

I didn't consider this route in my list as an option because I thought Graphite India, ORR and Silk board will be bad for Friday evening.

True, but this route is predictable though slow-moving (and mostly dual carriageway). In the other routes you could end up in massive jams (eg: at Varthur, Nallurahalli, Channasandra etc.) and there are road works happening at some places.

If you can push to 3:30 PM for your departure I think you'll escape relatively unscathed.

I have taken the Sarjapur-Bagalur-Hosur route in the past; it is pretty good throughout. Bagalur town could be a bottleneck though.

“Enough and more have been written about Bangalore traffic and potholes I say Mr.Iyer” bellows the Missus as she prepares tea for me and the daughter who needs to be dropped to school at HSR layout, ”without you adding to some more nonsense on the same. Looks like there is more traffic of articles written on the traffic than the actual car traffic.”

This from a family of two adults who drive two cars and have one car waiting to be sold somehow hidden in the parking lot of the apartment without some resident shooting a complaint mail in the apartment adda.

Welcome to the mad world of Bangalore where IT professionals have managed to have more cars than kids at home.

“What the hell when Pritam da and Annu bhai can make so many copies that they mistakenly have started copying their own songs and we tolerate them then I guess there is room for one more article on Bangalore traffic from me “I reply. I can anyways forward them send to the numerous WhatsApp groups I am part of with a warning that if you don’t forward the same to another 10 people then some babaji would be extremely unhappy with you and punish you .Always works.

We leave home sharp at 7.20 am and wait for another set of kids to join us.We need to make a move and ensure we are off before 7.28 from our meeting point so that we manage to beat the deluge of Vibgyor buses who will busily take U turns blocking traffic and add 30 mins more to our 14 km drive to HSR layout from Whitefield. Murphy’s law ensures either we or the other set of kids are late even if only by a minute and we get to extend our drive to a full 1 hour.

If you ask me the biggest trouble we face is not the actual traffic but the fact that some how we manage to get at least 6 punctures a month between our 2 cars.Beats me how so many nails are there on Bangalore roads which some how has a love affair with our tyres.The Nukkad wala tyre clinic has proposed giving me a monthly pass with cash back and upgraded me to preferred customer status.”Metro work Iyer sir that’s why so many nails” says Salim bhai the friendly manager from the friendly tyre clinic.

Then comes the various brilliant schemes that our friendly Corporation chaps come up with where we are assured that all potholes will be repaired within 7 days .These schemes are given fancy names like “operation white top” and “operation cold process” where some quick fix solutions are tried out by throwing some boulders inside the huge craters which we lovingly call Pot holes and sprinkling some black tar with or without white jelly powder depending on which scheme is on at that moment.

This ensures equal social status to all on the road whether they are driving the humble 800 or the fancy Q7 as we crawl side by side at a top speed of 10 kmph .What a stroke of genius by the corporation and government to ensure all are equal in Bangalore traffic and here we are whining about them when they have saved us lakhs of rupees by putting our ameo’s on par with the merc’s and bmw’s.

The fun starts when there is a light shower as then all roads turn into mini lakes (without foam like the is real lakes)and then we need to maneuver the cars between the potholes without submerging inside the hidden craters.Its like playing a part in a reality show more dangerous than katro ke khiladi.No more jujube downloading video games like other folks we have direct live action.We are allowed to use google maps to guide us through the narrowest of lanes for the fastest route again testing our driving skills whether the lane is actually big enough for the car to go through without toppling in the side gutter which is now well hidden or dash against the scooter on the side which is under water.

You know we Bangaloreans have an App for every situation.(We truly have a zen life belief that for any challenges life throws at us we come up with an app to counter it!).So there is an app called Publiceye which allows us folks to snap photos of all traffic offenders (as we deem them to be).So while we are merrily clicking on the mobile phones snaps of two wheelers who are recklessly coming at top speed from the opposite direction on the one way Graphite India road honking away to glory and using the choicest expletives to anyone opposing them,under the misguided belief that the traffic police are just waiting to punish them on receiving our photo on the app.These IT guys will believe anything I say!The missus being one of them who believe the power of Internet is unlimited.

Then there are the added advantages which the traffic allows us like for instance being a major conversation starter.We all Bangaloreans love to talk about our weather and traffic. Being born laid back what better excuse than the traffic for us Bangaloreans to be late for a meeting. Add to the fact that most of us need extra time at the signals to reply to all our whats app messages and emails and curse when the red light turns green before we have managed to first forward the funny repeat that some one from timbaktoo had forwarded to my ex colleague from Mumbai.
So what if we take 5 hours to cover a distance of 60 kms to work and back.We don’t hear the tyre companies complaining or the orthopedic doctors complaining or the garages complaining its only that whining IT crowd who have a problem with anything under the cloud. Typical of them.
All said and done the motto of all Bangaloreans remain Yeh dil Mange More(Traffic???).

Sure that all of us have Rants and complaints on our favorite City that is home.Ours is just synonymous with Traffic.

In Bombay, at least the traffic moves, but that evening, we were at a standstill for way too much time...

Long back, - when WhatsApp was unknown to us and Google Maps was still in its infancy - after boarding a KSRTC Volvo bound to Chikkamagaluru, I was struck in traffic for almost an hour and half. A local FM channel I was listening to was asking people to update the traffic conditions in their area via SMS. Listening to umpteen number of messages referring to slow moving taffic, jams and gridlocks, I typed in the status of my location and the RJ was all smiles (vocal smile ) when reading the same.

Experienced the infamous Bangalore traffic on Friday evening. Took 1.5 hours from the airport to Residency road . Luckily got a TUV300 Uber, so laptop + tethering = no time wasted.

In Bombay, at least the traffic moves, but that evening, we were at a standstill for way too much time:Attachment 1699630

Saturday morning, however, was beautiful. Roamed around a bit around the Bangalore Club area. Loved the charm of the inside lanes.

Haha. So you got to experience it first hand. Do holler out the next time you are here, it wil be nice to have a mini TBHP meet.

I am a born Mumbaikar who has adopted Bangalore for the past 9 years. I must say the traffic condition in Bangalore has gone from bad to worse. There are innumerable bottlenecks and travelling isn't like it used to be, what with vehicle density doubling in 9 years.

But with all this, I still feel the climate in Bangalore is perhaps one of the only factors which has made many of us stay back. In the initial days, I used to miss the discipline (you read that right!!) of the Mumbai traffic. Now I guess, it is all the same everywhere.

In Bombay, at least the traffic moves, but that evening, we were at a standstill for way too much time:

Welcome to Bangalore. You will come to a standstill and would not have a clue! Is it a jam, signal, water logging, metro construction, road repair work, flyover construction, truck/bus breakdown, mishap etc.

Finally when you move, you will realise that it is one of the above or none of the above!